Skelly Johnson loved to dance. Almost any night of the week, he could be found down at the club dancing to fiddle music until the rooster crowed. His wife nagged terribly, but Skelly never listened.

"Leave me be, woman," he complained. "A man has to do what a man has to do."

After an especially raucous outing, Skelly straggled home to bed one night and died in his sleep. The next morning his wife bought a coffin from the undertaker and arranged for a parson to say his funeral. They buried him that afternoon while a fiddler played slow, mournful dirges.

Afterwards, the mourning party all went to the widow’s house. They sat around the fire and told stories about how much old Skelly had always liked to dance.

"That man never stopped while he was alive," the widow said. "I suppose he has finally stopped now, but for some reason I suspect he hasn’t."

Before she even finished talking, a corpse walked in the front door. The corpse sat down next to the widow and said, "What’s this all about? You all look like somebody died. Who died?"

"You did, Skelly," whispered the widow.

"Fiddle faddle," said Skelly. "I don’t feel dead."

"You may not feel dead, Skelly," said the mourners. "But you sure look dead to us. How’d you get out of your grave, anyway? We just did finish filling it not more than an hour ago."

"Hogwash," said Skelly. "I’m not going to any cold grave until I'm good and ready." He moved closer to the fire and started warming his hands and feet. "It sure is cold in here," he said. "What we need is music and dancing to get our blood flowing. You there, fiddler, why don’t you play us a song?"

But the fiddler had already run out the door with the rest of the mourners.

All Skelly did was sit in front of the fire and try to get warm. This went on for the better part of a week. His widow got sick and tired of seeing him sitting there all the time and was just about at her wit’s end. Mean-
while, the undertaker had started coming around to see if Skelly was still refusing to go back into his grave.

"If he doesn’t use that coffin I made him," the undertaker told the widow, "I’m going to have to take it back. It’s just going to waste."

To make matters worse, the insurance company learned that Skelly was still up and about and refused to pay off his policy. The widow tried to explain all this to Skelly, but he would have none of it.

"Let me be, woman," he said. "A body has got to do what a body has got to do."

"But, Skelly," she complained. "You’re not a body at all. You’re just a bunch of bones."

"If I’m so dead, why don’t you mourn for me?" Skelly wanted to know.

"I did mourn for you," the widow said. "But what’s the use of mourning if you’re right here sitting by the fire day and night?"

"You haven’t given me my fair rights," he complained. "You never would cut me any slack."

"Haven’t given you your fair rights?" The widow exclaimed. "Didn’t I buy you a nice coffin from the undertaker? Didn’t I arrange for the preacher to say your funeral? Didn’t I hire the fiddler to play slow, mournful dirges?"

"The fiddler," said Skelly. "Now there’s an idea. Why don’t you go find the fiddler and tell him to come over here and play? But no slow, mournful dirges this time. I want to hear something lively."

The widow was tired of looking at Skelly anyway. She was tired of watching him sit by the fire and creak and crack all day and all night long. His joints were dry, his neck was stiff, and every time he moved he creaked and cracked like an old ship on the sea. So she agreed to go out and find the fiddler and ask him to come over and play.

Upon returning, the widow and the fiddler sat on one side of the fire and Skelly sat on the other. All three just looked at each other.

"This is highly unusual," the fiddler said. "Only once have I played for a dead man, and that was you, Skelly–at your funeral." He wished Skelly would go back in he grave where he belonged.

"How long do we have to put up with this bag of bones?" the widow asked. "How long do we have to share our house with a walking, talking, crackling dead man?"

But the fiddler had no answers.

"I’m sure not going anywhere," Skelly said.

All three of them sat around the fire looking at each other and listening to Skelly creak and crack.

"Well, don’t just sit there like a lump of coal," Skelly finally said. "Why don’t you play something fast and lively? Something I can dance to?"

So the fiddler got out his fiddle and began to play. Right away Skelly stood up and started dancing.

"That’s more like it," Skelly said, grinning widely at his widow, who sat with her head buried in her hands.

Skelly shook himself all over. He did a jig and then performed a reel, his bones clicking and clacking, his yellow teeth snapping, his joints popping, and his arms flip-flopping like fish as he leapt through the air. He skipped and danced and preened and pranced, and how that dead man could move. Neither the wife nor the fiddler had ever seen anything like it.

After a while a piece of Skelly came loose and landed on he floor with a thunk.

"Good gravy, will you look at that!" said the fiddler, his eyes popping out of his head.

"Play faster!" cried the widow.

The fiddler played faster and Skelly danced faster to keep up. Every time he hopped or skipped, bits of bones flew off him. They dropped and plopped every which way. Before long the floor was littered with bones.

"It's the strangest thing I’ve ever seen," said the fiddler.

"Play faster!" The widow egged him on. "Faster! Faster! Play as fast as you can!"

The fiddler played faster, sweat flying off him even as bones flew off Skelly. Bones kept dropping until all at once Skelly collapsed. There was nothing left except a heap of bones on the floor and, right on top of that, a bald grinning skull.

The skull kept dancing all by itself, grinning up at the fiddler as it rocked back and forth atop the pile of bones.

"Faster!" the widow cried. "Faster yet!"

"Don’t stop now," said the grinning skull. "I’m just getting warmed up. My, oh my, this is fun."

But the fiddler had no interest in playing for a dead grinning skull.

"I broke a string and I’ve got to go get a new one," he told the widow, and he ran straight out the front door as fast as he could.

The next day the mourners came back and gathered up Skelly’s bones and stuck them back in the coffin. This time, though, they were careful to mix them up and pile them one on top of the other, so Skelly wouldn’t be able to put himself back together again. They closed the lid and buried the coffin.

Old Skelly didn’t come back after that. His dancing days were finally done.

Kevin Markey is a freelance writer based in western Massachusetts.